Resanaki (Campaign)

Resanaki, also known as SSS (Simon's Samurai Saga), is an ongoing GURPS-campaign which began on the 25th of February, 2020 and is set to conclude on its 2-year anniversary: the 25th of February, 2022. Excluding session zero but including a prologue and an epilogue session, the campaign is set to last a total of 17 sessions.

The story of Resanaki takes place in the year 1476 on the island of Okinawa in the then Ryūkyū Kingdom. It stars the martial arts masters Greg Miller, Nin Yuan, Sassō Ishiguro and Touma Ayanami while they attempt to avenge their murdered sensei. As they attempt to track down and eliminate the assassins responsible, they are also trying to identify who hired them.

On their mission, they are joined by fellow martial arts master Sakura Tabe, pursuing her own quest of redemption.

Creation
Resanaki was the first story to be played using GURPS and was originally intended as a tutorial for learning the system.

The basic set rule books of GURPS were procured on the 17th of August, 2019, and early on it was decided that a shorter mini-campaign was necessary to familiarize both the game master and the players with the notoriously complicated system. The two main criteria imposed on this mini-campaign would be that the story would be set in the real world for familiarity while the characters would be cinematically powerful to encourage experimentation.

With the purchasing of the module GURPS: Martial Arts on the 25th of December, 2019, it was all but confirmed that the mini-campaign be based on martial arts in feudal Japan. Once the preparation for the story began, however, this was tweaked to instead take place on Okinawa island; the home of karate. The year was chosen to be 1476, when the island belonged to the Ryūkyū Kingdom, not Japan. The year was chosen specifically because it hosted an interesting shift in power in the then ruling Shō Dynasty.

In terms of the theme and outline of the story, the main source of inspiration was Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill. Also influential to the feel of the campaign were the film- and tv-genres of anime and classic Japanese samurai cinema.

Player characters
See their article pages for details:


 * Greg Miller
 * Nin Yuan
 * Sakura Tabe
 * Sassō Ishiguru
 * Touma Ayanami

Notable non-player characters
Not an all-inclusive list, but rather characters that are deemed significant enough to have their own article page:


 * Ayuko
 * Commander Kuro
 * Datoki
 * Katchi
 * Master Yoshi
 * Mayo
 * Ren
 * Shinkawa
 * Shō En
 * Shō Sen'i
 * Sensei Sansei
 * Suzuki
 * Yuji Amagi

Prologue
A few kilometers beyond the town of Naha lies the temple of Nirai Kanai. The man in charge of the temple was the 51-year-old retired master of martial arts Sansei. When he retired 15 years ago, in 1461, he swore off contact with the outside world and vowed to never teach his deadly talents to anyone. He would make only one exception to this promise. When the outsiders Greg Miller, Touma Ayanami, Nin Yuan and Sassō Ishiguro took up residence in the temple 1471, he passed his knowledge on to them in exchange for their help around the temple.

Over the next five years, he would train them rigorously while the tensions in the kingdom around them increased. Several times during this period, Sansei was approached by the Ryūkyū Kingdom's military commander Kuro and asked to develop the military. The offer was declined every time, as Sansei had chosen the life of a pacifist. In 1476, the commander visited again with his secretary Katchi, and brought the news that the monarch Shō En had died. With his younger, less experienced brother Shō Sen’i ascending to the throne, the military needed Sansei's help more than ever. Still, the offer was declined, and shortly thereafter the temple was attacked by a group of assassins targeting Sansei. A battle ensued in the dojo, with the five assassins pitted against Sansei and his four pupils. The battle ended in a truce, which was short-lived when the assassins' leader fired a poison dart at Sansei, fatally striking him in the shoulder. With the assassins escaping, the pupils were left to witness the death of their master whose final wish would be revenge.

Their quest would initially be challenging, as the only information on their assassins' identities they had was the leader's given name during the truce: Ren. In addition to this, Kuro and Katchi would return just in time to witness the death of Sansei. And with the assassins gone, they immediately put out a warrant for the arrest of the pupils as lead suspects. Katchi, however, also heard Sansei's final words. Believing the pupils to be innocent, he would go on to become an unlikely ally in their quest to find the real killers.

Chapter I: Mayo
With the temple now in the hands of the monk Master Yoshi, the pupils packed their things and headed for the nearby town of Naha, intending to begin their search there. Meeting Katchi at the local inn, the Naomi Teahouse, they would each go off in search of any clues. The pupils asked around town and Katchi infiltrated the guardhouse. Together, they quickly identified one of the members to be Mayo, a local celebrity judo and sumo wrestler who was known for competing in underground tournaments hosted in the backyard of the local tavern: Biru Kudasai (author's note: a beer as been handed to me now, quite strangely).

Using their own sumo and judo master, Greg Miller, they intended to face Mayo in the ring by signing up for the next tournament. This plan started off well and Greg was one victory away from facing off against Mayo in the final, but would instead be tragically eliminated in the semi-finals. Not discouraged by this loss, nor the guards around them, the group instead fought Mayo after the tournament and outside of the ring.

Meanwhile, the karate master Sakura Tabe had also made her way to this tournament, and was hoping to find Mayo for her own reasons. She was searching for her missing childhood friend, Ayuko, who she had last heard went off joining a group of assassins. Having identified Mayo as another member of the same group, she was hoping to find her through him. There would be no such help however, for when the fighting began she was quickly knocked to the ground and clung to her life by a thread.

When the battle was over, it ended with Mayo bleeding out on the ground and with his dying breath rewarding the pupils good fight with information on another member. Not Ayuko, but instead Shinkawa, who Mayo knew also resided in Naha.

With Mayo dead, Sakura would temporarily join the pupils on their quest as they shared the common goal of tracking down members of this group of assassins. She would also, alongside Katchi's research at the guardhouse, be able to provide some more crucial information on them. It was revealed that the group was known as the Hanataba squad, and the names of all five members were Mayo, Shinkawa, Ayuko, Datoki and Ren. In addition to their names, their last known province of residence was also uncovered, with Mayo and Shinkawa listed in Naha, Ayuko and Datoki in the nearby town of Tomari, and finally Ren in the capital of Shuri.

Chapter II: Shinkawa
Shinkawa would prove fairly easy to track down within Naha. Further information dug up by the pupils and Katchi would identify him as the leader of a local gang of thugs primarily residing in the docks. To find these thugs, the group decided to offer up Sakura as bait, posing as a lonely drunkard lumbering around in the docks' closed marketplace in the evening. The plan worked, as a couple of thugs quickly approached to rob her. A fight ensued, which the pupils and Sakura swiftly won. Shinkawa himself was not among them, but information gathered from a surviving thug would prove promising. While the thug conceded that Shinkawa was away for the night, they also revealed that his headquarters for the time being was in a nearby warehouse. The group, tired and in needing of a rest themselves, vowed to return to the warehouse the following day.

The next day, the group tried to recruit the help of Katchi and the Naha guard force for the big fight to come. Katchi promised to try, but claimed that the guards were reluctant to do anything about Shinkawa's gang, fearing for their lives. The pupils and Sakura, on their own and scouting the area, patiently waited for the evening to come and the commoners to leave. Once the dock marketplace was closed and empty, the group decided to break into the warehouse. While Nin and Sassō tried to sneak in from a side door, Greg, Touma and Sakura burst in through the main entrance. Inside, they found that the warehouse was actually a boathouse. The big boat docked inside of it was populated by Shinkawa, wielding a deadly crossbow.

The battle would prove challenging and take its toll on the pupils, but would in the end be won partly through a last-minute entrance of Katchi and the guards. The guards were in the end convinced that victory against the gang was possible and therefore opted to help the pupils, with the excepting of Suzuki who ended up fighting against Sassō instead of alongside him. A well placed bolt from Katchi's own crossbow would knock Shinkawa prone and spell his defeat. Touma then approached him for an interrogation, which yielded little information as Shinkawa chose to rather impale himself on Touma's sword than help them.

With Naha cleared of Hanataba members, and wanted posters of the pupils beginning to appear, it was time for the pupils to leave for the next town: Tomari.

Chapter III: Ayuko
When the group arrived in Tomari, they discovered that the town had been plagued by a string of murders. The deaths seemed to be respiratory related and the victims appeared to all be men of power and authority, such as council members and guards. Again, the group searched for clues while Katchi went undercover at the local guardhouse. This time, stealth was of the essence since wanted posters administered by commander Kuro had begin to appear all over the country, including Tomari.

Using the Amagi Inn as their base of operations, sufficiently bribed by Katchi to house the fugitives, the group interviewed the widows of two victims and even identified a councilman with the name Ikehara Tsutomu who they believed could be next. They spoke to Ikehara in the bar Akachōchin, where he helped the group understand that the victims were likely poisoned at another bar which they frequented. When searching for this other bar, a drunkard mistook Sakura for a person named "Wisteria" before dying of poisoning in the street. Knowing Ayuko bears a resemblance to Sakura, the group soon figured out that Ayuko runs a casino bar in the slums named Sucky Saki under the pseudonym "Wisteria" and likely conducts the poisonings from there.

To meet Ayuko, however, the group needed to gamble their way to an exclusive invites-only high-rollers game where they would face her. In this game, they caught Ayuko red-handed during a poisoning and sent the victim immediately to a doctor. As for Ayuko herself, they struck an uncomfortable deal. The pupils would spare her life in exchange for her returning with Sakura to their hometown where she would face their old sensei Mika. This plan would only last through the night, as in the morning they were awoken to the news of a raid being conducted at Sucky Saki. This raid was mostly of the group's own making, as the victim they sent to the doctor alerted the authorities. They immediately made for the bar, where they would fight their largest battle so far.

The battle was three-sided, with the group being one force, Ayuko and her guards a second and lastly; the guards of Tomari being the third. Katchi again took part with his crossbow, and again fired a deadly bolt at the Hanataba member. As history repeated itself, Touma struck the finishing blow as Ayuko died in her childhood friend Sakura's arms.

Chapter IV: Datoki
The day before the three-way battle of Sucky Saki, Greg Miller was undercover escorting Ikehara Tsutomu to the townhall where the council resided. There, he would spot the commander of the Tomari guard force: Nin Tendo. This commander, Greg immediately recognized as actually being Datoki, the fourth member of the Hanataba squad. It is not known whether Datoki recognized Greg in turn.

On the day of the battle, when Datoki and his accompanying four guards caught word of the raid at Sucky Saki, it had already begun. Arming themselves, they made haste to the establishment and picked up the newly transferred guard Suzuki on the way. This team of six burst in to the bar shortly after the death of Ayuko and joined the fight on their fellow guards side, which forced Katchi to choose between the guards and the pupils.

In the end, Katchi and the battle both turned on Datoki, who was mortally wounded by Touma. Bleeding out and knocking on death's door, Datoki was resuscitated by Sassō for just long enough for Nin to ask him who hired them. Understanding their victory as a business transaction, Datoki gave them the information he had as his end of the bargain. He revealed that Ren was fully in charge of the business side of assassinations, but that he made sure to independently investigate their jobs. In terms of the Sansei assassination, he had only one more thing to say to them before perishing: Resanaki.

In the wake of the battle, the pupils and Sakura had to leave, for different reasons. With Ayuko dead, the grieving Sakura drank away her pain until blackness. The daughter of the inn, Yuji Amagi, with whom Sakura was having a romance, nurtured her back to life and sobriety. While grateful, and perhaps in love, Sakura still had to depart. She intended to bring Ayuko's remains to their home village as proof of her death and out of respect. As for the pupils and Katchi, they were heading for the capital of Shuri, where Ren as well as the government of the Ryūkyū Kingdom both resided. By now the pupils' wanted status was known throughout the land and so even Katchi could no longer risk being seen with them. In the big capital and their final quest for revenge, they would be on their own.

Chapter V: Ren
As a final gift from Katchi, the group were given a slip of parchment with the name of the most fugitive-friendly tavern in the city of Shuri: Gurindoragon Inn. This, however, would not be their first stop as they encountered a band of thieves on the road struggling with a stolen safe. Nin and Greg managed to open the safe only to find the memoirs of an old man: Misaka. Using their diplomatic skills, the group convinced the thieves to relinquish the worthless memoirs that were locked inside and be on their way. Further down the road, the group found Misaka by his sabotaged cart, returned his memoirs and repaired the cart before continuing into Shuri.

Once settled in Gurindoragon Inn, the group got to work. Nin scouted the royal palace Shuri Castle, Touma and Sassō acquired better disguises and Greg set up a gambling business in the bar based on "knifey fingers". Once gathered in the bar that evening, Nin overheard chatter about the Hanataba squad no longer taking on missions. He then approached the bartender Midori and asked him about it. After bribing him with a lamb steak, Midori divulged to Nin that the Hanataba has a contact at the post office of Shuri called Chief Yūbin. Midori also revealed that Yūbin requires a codephrase for ordering a Hanataba hit, being to "deliver flowers" to someone.

The next day, the entire group snuck across town to the post office, where Touma was bombarded with letters from his wife. The group bribed Yūbin to reveal that he delivers the commissions to a contact at the Zuisen Distillery, and that Ren lives near it because she owns a 20% share in the company. To verify this, the group told Yūbin to deliver a message from them to Ren, waited until closing time and then spied on his delivery at the distillery. Once there they found that the message was delivered to a woman acting as Ren's representative. They tailed her and followed her a few blocks away to a steep hill, on top of which likely rested Ren's house. They did not stay there too long, only deciding to observe the area in preparation for an assault the next day.

When passing by the Zuisen Distillery on their way back, they came across the drunkenly crying Sakura Tabe. Over the past two days, she had first handed over Ayuko's remains to their old sensei Mika who in turn decided to grant her an unmarked grave by the temple. Then Sakura rode to Tomari and spend the night with her lover Yuji. They spoke about Sakura's alcoholism, but also confessed their love of each other. In the end, they ended up becoming engaged to each other, using Sakura's pair of fans as tokens of engagement. However, their marriage would hinge on the condition that Sakura had to sober up, since Yuji disapproved of her addiction. Before she could do that however, she needed to get to the Zuisen Distillery in honor of Ayuko to acquire their favorite drink: the Zuisen awamori. By the time she reached it, it was already nighttime and closed, causing the drunken outburst of sadness which Sansei's pupils discovered.

The pupils convinced Sakura to join them back at the Gurindoragon Inn, where Sassō bought her some Zuisen awamori from the bar with some herbs added to it for a sobering effect. Then they discussed their plan of attack for the next day, which they concluded would be at dusk. They also desired to borrow Misaka's cart as a trojan horse to shield them during the initial phase of the assault, but were disappointed the next day to discover that Misaka and his wife had still not returned from their visit to Tomari. So when dusk came, they simply walked to the bottom of the hill, where they ordered some wok for dinner. The vendor was a spy for Ren, however, and used the fire from a stove to signal their arrival. From the top of the hill, Touma could spot Ren seeing the signal, and he took the opportunity to stare daggers at her, showing his intent on revenge. Thus, the Battle for Zuisen Hill began and the group initiated their bloody ascension up the hill.

It proved their toughest fight yet, and their ascent was costly. The enemy possessed a catapult and numbered over the dozen. However, the group persevered despite multiple injuries and left many bodies lying in their wake, only half of which were breathing. At the top, they found that a rope bridge across a small chasm to Ren's house had been partially cut. The last standing enemy was about to cut the bridge down completely when Nin successfully pushed him off the edge, though it took a few tries. With the henchmen felled and the dust settling, Sassō's post-combat shakes caused him to faint, and Greg caught him in his arms, himself guilt-stricken for having fallen behind in search for tinder and fuel to burn the catapult down. Sakura was not free from guilt herself, as she too felt like Sassō's passing out was her responsibility. She had struck Sassō's final opponents with killing blows and one of them died in Sassō's arms as he tried in vain to stabilize them.

Sassō came to a few minutes later, and the group had to press on. After crossing the perilous bridge, they reached Ren's house. Within, they spotted a curious-looking safe encased in her office wall, but it had to wait. They finally faced her in her backyard, a beautiful zen garden walled in on the sides and overlooking a cliff on the opposing side. At the end of the garden, across a pond and by a great tree on the cliff, stood she who had led the charge against their master. It was time to end the Hanataba squad once and for all.

The fight began with Ren throwing poison darts at each of the five protagonists, but miraculously neither hit their marks. Upon this failure, Ren called for backup, summoning two hungry Bengal tigers to fight beside her. Sakura, Sassō and Touma ignored the animals and went straight for the leader and last surviving member of the Hanataba squad. Meanwhile, Greg and Nin struggled greatly with the tigers on their own.

While Sakura, Sassō and Touma were fighting Ren, they discovered a key hanging around her neck which presumably led to the safe in her office. Nin used his speed to run from the tigers, swipe the key off of her neck mid-sprint, turned around and then used his momentum to slam into a tiger. The tiger took damage from this, but it was Nin who suffered the worst. This left Greg alone to fend off both tigers while Nin was stunned, and all he had to do so with was a bucket. Touma left the fighting of Ren to Sassō and Sakura as he came to Greg and Nin's assistance.

Eventually, the tigers were slain and Ren could not survive the following numerical disadvantage any longer. Sakura and Sassō had her dying against a tree, and asked her questions. They wished to know why she killed Sansei, to which she replied that it was her job to do so. They also asked her who hired her group, to which she replied "Resanaki" but then laughed. She said that the name was obviously a pseudonym, but smirked and said that she would never take a job without finding out who for. She assured the group that she had means of finding out who wished to hire their services. After refusing to evaluate further, she was finished off by Touma as the group turned their hopes to the safe.

Chapter VI: Resanaki
Nin returned to Ren's office to unlock the safe while the rest of the group laid Ren to rest by her tree in the garden. Touma, now feeling like his job was finished, smashed his katana over his knee, officially retiring from fighting. After Ren's body was overlooking the ocean beyond the cliff for her eternal rest, Greg asked for help from Touma to lift one of the tiger-corpses from the water, which he had plans for. When this was done, Nin had returned from the office with the contents of the safe which related to the Sansei-assassination. Ren had indeed done her due diligence by putting a specific price on Sansei's assassination and then traced that amount across hands and accounts. She traced it all the way to Kuro's office, with an unspecified security expense penned for its exact amount and signed by Commander Kuro himself. The group decided to discuss the meaning of this back at the Gurindoragon Inn.

Before they left, Sakura snuck into Ren's office and searched the safe for the paperwork of her shares in Zuisen distillery, which she found. Touma picked up the pieces of his sword as well as Ren's sword. On their way to the inn, he and Sakura handed the metal off to a blacksmith for a special order. Touma requested a new sword be made using steel from both his and Ren's katanas. Sakura requested that wedding rings be made from some the leftover steel, for her and Yuji. Sakura then made an additional stop, where she handed the paperwork for Ren's shares in the Zuisen Distillery over to a forger to transfer to her own name. Greg and Nin, meanwhile, carried the tiger to a butcher where Greg requested the tiger be skinned for its pelt and meat. Once back at the inn, he handed the tiger-meat to the bartender Midori and requested it to be prepared for the groups feast. Over dinner, the group discussed the news that Kuro may be responsible for Sansei's death after all, and possible ways of handling that.

When Midori came over to their table, they noticed that he had the tattoo of a green dragon on his shoulder. They asked him about it, and he clarified that it was from his time in the Japanese yakuza. He was known as Gurindoragon, or Green Dragon, since the yakuza had a fascination with using codenames in English. They asked him if he knew of any "Resanaki", which he admitted he did not. Greg then had a moment of clarity where it all made sense. If Gurindoragon meant Green Dragon, Resanaki could mean "Red Snake". And the group did know someone with a shoulder tattoo of a red snake: Katchi. Revealing this to the group, all the pieces began to fit. Katchi certainly had the means and ability to sign documents in Commander Kuro's name, and it made strategic sense for Katchi to want to pit Sansei's pupils against the Hanataba squad. The group immediately decided on a new course of action: to seek out Kuro, not to fight but to provide him with this intel on Katchi.

The next morning the group was staking out the main street of Shuri, just like they had when observing the post office. Touma and Sassō sat together in the same café, with Sakura at her own table with an old man for cover not too far away. Nin and Greg climbed onto the roof, where they spent their time playing chess. Only an hour later did Kuro pass by patrolling the street, which Sakura noticed. She signalled this to Touma and Sassō, which made Touma rise out of his seat and march straight toward the Commander. Sakura tried desperately to stop him, but not before the Commander noticed the three of them and ordered them to surrender themselves. Touma did so immediately, with Sassō and Sakura following closely behind. They plead their case, but it seemed to fall of deaf ears. It was not until Sakura mentioned "Resanaki" and produced the documents which proved he had ordered Sansei's killing that Kuro stopped and raised an eyebrow. He was now intrigued and wished to hear what the group had to say, but within the safe confines of the castle. To fully earn his trust, Sakura was let go with the instruction of finding Greg and Nin and bringing them to the castle to be detained as well.

With the entire group at the castle, they were personally escorted to Kuro's office where they could speak in private, save for a few trusted guards. The pupils and Sakura told Kuro everything they knew and, while shocking, a lot of it made sense to him as well. In response, he gave them solemn news; Katchi had left the capital mere hours ago. Apparently, upon learning of Ren's death, Katchi had left in a hurry for the temple of Nirai Kanai with a group of soldiers, citing some business that swiftly had to be taken care of. Kuro, understanding what may be at stake if the group was telling the truth, offered to provide them with the castle's fastest horses. However, they would be on their own since there was plenty of paperwork and investigation to be done before the government could officially turn on its own military secretary.

On their way out of the capital, they made a few quick stops to pick up their orders from the night prior. Touma got his new sword, Sakura got her wedding rings and Greg got his tiger pelt. Only Sakura's transaction of Zuisen shares had to wait a few more days. But with that behind them, they rode for Nirai Kanai with haste.

They arrived to see that the temple had been ransacked. Wood was splintered, stone cracked and flowers trampled. The storage, which the pupils had helped rebuild after a storm, was also ravished. In the courtyard they were met by five fighters and four cauldrons of incense around them. Katchi was also perched by the entrance to the main temple, and he insisted to the heroes that they heard him out before resorting to violence. He confessed to being responsible for the assassination of Sensei Sansei and told them his reason for doing it. He considered the military to be too weak, and felt threatened by the prospect of having the pacifist sensei on Kuro's council. His plan was to eliminate this threat and pin the blame on Kuro, which would open up the position of the Ryukyuan military commander for himself to take. When the pupils survived, they became the suspects instead which forced Katchi to alter his plan. He decided to have them and the Hanataba wipe each other out, not expecting the pupils to be as strong as they were.

At the end of his speech, he introduced the pupils to the five fighters in the courtyard as the new Hanataba squad, which would also become his own secret police. With his concluding words, he alluded to the monks of the temple being held hostage in the main building behind him, and revealed that his speech was merely him stalling for time until the incense burned down. It having now done so resulted in an explosion of smoke, and Katchi retreated inside the building while the fight outside began.

After all they had learned and been through, the heroes made relatively quick work of the new Hanataba squad, eliminating them without any serious injuries. Only Sassō and Touma looked noticably hurt, having lost about half of their vitality each. But the battle was not over yet, which they were reminded of once they entered the main temple building where the monks were held. There they saw Yoshi and the other 8 monks tied up on damp straw, and around them on the second floor balconies they saw Katchi and four bowmen. Additionally, in the middle of the hall they saw a ronin who revealed himself to be Suzuki: the guard with a vendetta against Sassō. Katchi dropped a burning candle from above which landed next to Yoshi and lit the alcohol-drenched straw on fire. The fighting continued.

With their lives at stake, but also the lives of the revered monks, they did not hold back and faught fiercely. Miraculously, the divine wind was on the side of the heroes and they fought without failure. Greg went straight for the bowmen while Sassō took on the responsibility of fighting Suzuki. Sakura, Nin and Touma managed to save enough monks for them to be able to save the rest. Then the fighting spread to the entire room, on both floors. All while under heavy arrow fire, Sassō fought Suzuki, Greg and Nin fought the bowmen while Sakura and Touma fought their way to take on Katchi directly. All heroes sustained injuries, most of which heavy, but in the end they managed to prevail with zero losses from their side. Suzuki was knocked out cold, the bowmen were either killed, unconcious or fled and Katchi was eventually mortally wounded and fell to his death in the fire of his own making.

With that, their quests to avenge the pupils' beloved Sensei Sansei as well as Sakura's childhood friend Ayuko complete, the group of heroes had finally accomplished what they had dedicated these last two weeks of their lives to. The only loss they could not prevent was that of their temple, whose main building burned down. But Yoshi assured them that it could be rebuilt, and that he was proud of them. With that, they heard the galloping of horses as Commander Kuro arrived to the temple.